SOME CATALYTIC ASPECTS OF DISEASE AND DRUGS 217 



changes do not necessarily produce disease; their effects may be 

 unimportant or even beneficial. They may be basic in evolution, 

 for example, by leading to the production or modification of 

 structures, odors, etc. more attractive to the opposite sex, by giving 

 superior resistance to predators or microorganisms — in short by 

 establishing an effective superiority over competitors. Further- 

 more, every new self-duplicating catalyst may not be persistent. 

 It may be inactivated or destroyed by the immunological mechan- 

 ism of the cell; indeed, recovery from disease is often effected in 

 this manner. 



In final analysis, cellular death comes when the stoppage of the 

 circulation of the blood deprives the cellular biocatalysts of their 

 necessary sources of supply and elimination, and they are soon 

 disintegrated or irreversibly coagulated by the changed milieu 

 conditions. Brain cells are particularly sensitive to lack of oxygen 

 (anoxemia), which can quickly produce irreversible damage to 

 them. The cellular chromosomes speedily clump after somatic 

 death (the death of the organism as a whole): Professor H. A. Evans 

 (University of California) and his collaborators had to work with 

 great speed to demonstrate the 48 separate chromosomes in human 

 somatic cell. 1 



Nature and Classification of Diseases 



Some years ago 2 the writer attempted to outline a classification 

 of diseases dependent rather upon physicochemical principles 

 than upon the part of the body most noticeably affected, and often 

 carrying the name of the discoverer (Bright's disease, Paget' s 

 disease). A revised form of this large table is herewith presented, 

 for it offers a "bird's-eye" view of what goes on in the human body, 

 and stresses the necessity of having breadth as well as depth of 

 mental focus in considering so highly complicated an organism. 

 Naturally there is no attempt at completeness in a diagram of this 

 kind, but it will serve to outline many of the main interrelations 

 between structure, function, health, ageing, disease, and death. 

 Certain details for which there is no space in the diagram are 

 represented there by numbers which refer to accompanying notes 

 where some details are given. 



Discoveries in various sciences have enabled medicine to peer 

 more and more profoundly into happenings at progressively lower 

 structural levels of the organism, and thus gain a deeper knowl- 

 edge of the basic causes of various diseases. As the science of 



